why i think cereus is a good site for micro players

Sure they will rob you if you play any decent sized games but for a micro player you will be hard pressed to find a softer site. They have more people willing to call huge raises and reraises then any site i have ever played at

Bodog Table Rankings.

/thread

Jeez...why did I stop playing this site? I think I'm gonna move some money back over there.

With Poker Stars having a noticeably large amount of TV time for commercials there is no doubt in my mind that the microstakes there are the softest because of all the noobs.

Sites like Cereus are fishier at $50NL than $10NL because the bad beat jackpots bring them in by the schools. Seriously, go rail a $50NL table on the Cereus network and you'll constantly see 3-5 players taking flops after facing a raise. It's all gamboolers calling 6-2 sooooted to a raise because they think they are going to hit the jackpot since the last time they called their suited trash they didn't hit their straight flush.

You cannot be cereus?!?

F@ck Cereus!!! Sorry i just hate them. lol

ok guys i'm not trying to shill for cereus just saying the games there are super soft. Where else can you reraise shove for 80bb over a utg raise and get 2 callers? Sure some players are decent but it seems like every table always has some donk willing to stack off pf with QT suited. The draw back is a superuser might join your table. I've also notice some other strange stuff. Like when some nit just folds and folds then suddenly gets the spirit of gus and shoves with some random junk hand and rivers trips and hits the road. Kinda like the knew what was coming.

Originally Posted by littleogre

The draw back is a superuser might join your table. I've also notice some other strange stuff. Like when some nit just folds and folds then suddenly gets the spirit of gus and shoves with some random junk hand and rivers trips and hits the road. Kinda like the knew what was coming.

You cant be CEREUSly saying that a superuser want to join a microstakes level and crush 10NL and 25NL?

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

With Poker Stars having a noticeably large amount of TV time for commercials there is no doubt in my mind that the microstakes there are the softest because of all the noobs.

For non-US players, nooooooo way. Too many grinders, even as low as 10NL. They might not be great players, but they know basic strategy and play tight pre-flop. Party and OnGame are both much softer than Stars.

For US players I'm not sure, because I've never played at Cereus or Full Tilt so I can't compare.

Originally Posted by hangchiong

Originally Posted by littleogre

The draw back is a superuser might join your table. I've also notice some other strange stuff. Like when some nit just folds and folds then suddenly gets the spirit of gus and shoves with some random junk hand and rivers trips and hits the road. Kinda like the knew what was coming.

You cant be CEREUSly saying that a superuser want to join a microstakes level and crush 10NL and 25NL?

actually i wasn't serious or cereus about the superuser comment.

i've been playing on Betfair recently - the players there are complete and utter shite. I don't know why I was bothering at $50nl on Stars when I could just rake it in at Betfair.

I think its because its mainly a gambling site. Most nights are full of drunk gambling Brits. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Last night I finished up 5 BI's in 1 hour. No fancy play, just play solid TAG.

Plus 30% Rakeback - any Brit grinders, don't bother with FTilit/Stars etc until $100nl/$200nl. Get on a soft as shite degenrate Gambling site!!!

Willbur - just out of interest why would you move back to Stars/Tilt for $100. I'm playing at Betfair $50 at the moment as well and i wasn't planning on moving to another site any time soon. Do the games dry up above the micros?

i think (and i could be wrong - i'll do some research before I move up) that the Stars FPP's structure becomes better than rakeback.
Spoon did a thread on it somewhere.

Not sure how busy Betfair is above $50nl. It could well be its fishy enough to make it worthwhile staying.

I'm seriously amazed at how bad the players are on Betfair - I just had some money left from the some random betting thing. Thought I'd try the poker. I've now got a sizable bankroll on Betfair. Do you find the players as bad as me??? I've only been playign on there about 1month.

The players are players are pretty bad, I have ground a few hundred bucks up through $20 and am now at $50 and I'm not anything special!

From this run $20 is basically free money, I moved from Stars and remember being amazed at witnessing my first pre-flop AI on Q10o

Of course the swings can be big however often the play is passive enough that you 'get out of jail free' when you may be stacked by more aggro opponents. I probably have a selection of HH's now of people just calling down sets etc.

At $50 there are a few more regs clearly grinding rakeback, but they are mostly just quite tight, some are plain awful. last night I had a hand where I re raised pre flop and we still saw a flop 5 way!

The games seem to be softest in the afternoon and evenings, strangely I find weekend nights tighter. I think lots of guys are betting on the horses/football with a poker table with a 1/2 stack open on the side? (just a theory)

Downsides of the site -
- The software is not as good as Stars, it seems to be a bit of a resource hogg, freezes/disconnects every so often and the way the tables pop up over each other before you finish on one tilts me.

- I dont think there is much if any full ring traffic, or S&G traffic from the few times I have looked for one of these.

- Support seems to be pretty slow. I placed in the rakeback freeroll and it took them a week to get back to me on a query.

- If you move money on via neteller and don't send them a scan of your passport/driving licence in a certain time they Will freeze your account. They did this to me and it was a hassle to get it to them (no scanner at home)

As I typed I have just lost KK AI 3 way pre to 65o catching a straight great site! (I imagine he saw value with the other player being in).

Cool - shame, now I know that at least one player at $50nl has a clue!

I had the same probs with passprt pic - though I ended up shouting at some poor girl down the phone and they un-frooze my account.

The software is a bit slow compared to Stars, but i've got used to it now.

I know I said it earlier, but I can't believe how much softer the games. Everytime I play there are 4 or 5 genuine head scratch moments.

Long live Betfair!!!

Originally Posted by kb coolman

Bodog Table Rankings.

/thread

Jeez...why did I stop playing this site? I think I'm gonna move some money back over there.

So I'm sitting around working from home today, and I decide to take another look at Bodog. Turns out I still had $2.61 left in my account, so I say 'what the heck' and sit down at $10NL short stacked. Long story short, I played about 100 hands with a win rate of just under 120BB/100. Nothing fancy, either. Guys just call down incredibly light.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

For non-US players, nooooooo way. Too many grinders, even as low as 10NL. They might not be great players, but they know basic strategy and play tight pre-flop. Party and OnGame are both much softer than Stars.

Good luck beating the rake. Starting at 25NL all the suckers play at the jackpot tables, and the 5NL and 10NL games are not softer than on Pokerstars.
I haven't played Ongame... will try in a while, but from what I've seen, starting at around 50NL it's pretty much the same no matter where you play.
There are a couple of sites that are softer than Stars at a 10NL-25NL level, but the level on Stars is still pretty weak, and you get reliable software, lots of player, and lots of games to choose from.
There's certainly nothing wrong with trying out some other places, but if you're a loosing microstakes player on stars, you will be a loosing player elsewhere. Better work on your game than try to compensate by playing weaker fields... You want to move up at some point, right? Microstakes are there to improve your game, not to grind out the maximum profit.
I've recently staked a friend on Stars who used to play on Cake, and Cake is said to be softer than... blah... And he was amazed how soft Stars was, and already quardrupled his $10 roll in a week.

CEREUS jackpot is full of donks,at the 50NL.

At Absoulute,the max buy in is 200BB which sucks.So i try to play only 100BB to practice myself with it.

Beating the rake at Absolute Jackpot is near impossible.You cant even double up due to so many donks playing 20-50BB.and the rake just killed
2BB almost every hand.

Originally Posted by WillburForce

i think (and i could be wrong - i'll do some research before I move up) that the Stars FPP's structure becomes better than rakeback.

Pretty certain thats only if you reach Supernova or Supernova Elite, which is way out of the range of your average micro player.

Originally Posted by oskar

Good luck beating the rake. Starting at 25NL all the suckers play at the jackpot tables, and the 5NL and 10NL games are not softer than on Pokerstars.
I haven't played Ongame... will try in a while, but from what I've seen, starting at around 50NL it's pretty much the same no matter where you play.
There are a couple of sites that are softer than Stars at a 10NL-25NL level, but the level on Stars is still pretty weak, and you get reliable software, lots of player, and lots of games to choose from.
There's certainly nothing wrong with trying out some other places, but if you're a loosing microstakes player on stars, you will be a loosing player elsewhere. Better work on your game than try to compensate by playing weaker fields... You want to move up at some point, right? Microstakes are there to improve your game, not to grind out the maximum profit.
I've recently staked a friend on Stars who used to play on Cake, and Cake is said to be softer than... blah... And he was amazed how soft Stars was, and already quardrupled his $10 roll in a week.

Thanks for the advice.

I was simply making an observation from my own experience. I played 30K hands at Stars in 2008 at 2NL, 5Nl and 10NL, working my BR up from $50 to about $300. My first move away was to Party where I played 10NL, and I was amazed at how soft the games were in comparison. My winrate on Party was well over 10ptBB/100, whereas on Stars it was more in the region of 5-6ptBB/100. As I said, just my experience.

I still haven't found a site better than Bodog for the Rake. I've been over at PStars for a while clearing bonuses, but I'm heading back over to Bodog until I clear $25NL, I think. For Mid-Stakes, the rake isn't an issue, but for micro players, it's a huge % of your BB/hr.

Rake Structures for FR $10NL (copied from respective websites):
Ultimate Bet: $0.01 for each $0.20 Max $3
Poker Stars: $0.05 for each $1.00 in Pot, Max $3
Full Tilt: $0.05 per $0.50 (10%), Max $2
Bodog: $0.01 on each $0.20 , Max $0.10

And trust me, you can get a ton of AI pots on Bodog with guys willing to call down light. I just built a leftover $2.61 balance to $27 over 206 hands today. It's insane.

Now, it's will be rare to get hit with a $3 rake at $10NL under a 5% structure simply because you won't have many multiway AI pots. $2 at Full Tilt is more common because of the 10% structure. In any case 2 way AI with $10 stacks happens all the time. Here's the rake you can expect at each of these sites assuming at $20 pot:

Ultimate Bet: $1, or 10BB
Poker Stars: $1, or 10BB
Full Tilt: $2, or 20BB
Bodog: $0.10, or 1BB.

There were some payment processing issues in the past with Bodog, but those seem to have been worked out. I have recently cashed out $400, and had no problems whatsoever. You can follow the Bodog Payout Thread on 2+2 and see how things have improved.

Also, Bodog has been running a 'limited time' 100% reload bonus for several months now that is ridiculously easy to clear. Combine that with the fact that you can then convert your player points to cash, and it's easy to get a 110% bonus every 30 days.

Chew on that for a while.

Nothing wrong with fishy sites :P

Too many folks worry about "beating the good competition" and too little about making the poker monies the old fashioned way, by joining only games you can crush.

Originally Posted by Robb

Nothing wrong with fishy sites :P

Too many folks worry about "beating the good competition" and too little about making the poker monies the old fashioned way, by joining only games you can crush.

QFT. We always look for the fishy tables whenever we play, so why not play on a fishy site? Being able to spot and exploit the fish is the #1 skill in poker, imo.

Also, PT isn't supported on Bodog, and HEM is only with a grabber. Idleminer is officially supported, but Holdem Indicator works, too. I find the HUD doesn't work well with HI, but all hands are successfully imported to the database for review. I think the lack of HUD options helps keep the fish factor high.

You can also only play 4 tables at once, but that's perfect for me. And without the HUD, it really forces you to pay attention to the competition and work on your notes.

Yup, Bodog's a great site.

Originally Posted by TonyB73

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

With Poker Stars having a noticeably large amount of TV time for commercials there is no doubt in my mind that the microstakes there are the softest because of all the noobs.

For non-US players, nooooooo way. Too many grinders, even as low as 10NL. They might not be great players, but they know basic strategy and play tight pre-flop. Party and OnGame are both much softer than Stars.

For US players I'm not sure, because I've never played at Cereus or Full Tilt so I can't compare.

With good table selection they can easily be avoided. Also, most of them are just tight. Tight doesn't mean good, you can exploit so easily because alot don't know anything about stealing or defending blinds, so literally open raising atc on CO-SB can be profitable. Plus they can't lay down hands. More profit when that trash hand you've been raising with connects with the flop.

Originally Posted by hangchiong

CEREUS jackpot is full of donks,at the 50NL.

At Absoulute,the max buy in is 200BB which sucks.So i try to play only 100BB to practice myself with it.

Beating the rake at Absolute Jackpot is near impossible.You cant even double up due to so many donks playing 20-50BB.and the rake just killed
2BB almost every hand.

And I decided to withdraw what I had and start back at $0 this time at 22NL because I though my win rate was garbage. It's funny because I swear the play at 10NL is better than 50NL, yet my WR at 50NL compared to 10NL is pathetic. Oh well I'm having fun grinding it up and I feel like I'm learning alot at the same time.

I notice most pots cap out around $6-$8...and they take 50 cents from each raked pot greater than $5. Guess this is one of those situations where being up against a bunch of short stackers can kill you since you can't build a big pot to cover the cost (rake) of all the small pots. I imagine things get better at 100NL and 200NL though considering the 50 cent jackpot take would be of less magnitude relative to pot sizes.

You seem to have a very good point about the rake...I wonder how much I've paid over time to this thing...it can't be pretty.